1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an in-vehicle terminal for emergency notification, which is configured to transmit emergency information to a center in response to detection of an occurrence of an emergency situation involving a vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
Under normal circumstances, an in-vehicle terminal for emergency notification (called also an emergency notification in-vehicle terminal) receives an electric power from a vehicle battery. The emergency notification in-vehicle terminal includes a dedicated back-up battery in order to send an emergency notification even in cases where a connection wire, which connects the in-vehicle terminal to the vehicle battery, is disconnected or a fuse is melted and cut. This kind of emergency notification in-vehicle terminal transmits emergency information to an emergency call center when an emergency situation such as a vehicle collision and the like is detected. The emergency information typically includes the time of occurrence of the emergency situation, a vehicle position, a vehicular swept path, a vehicle speed, a vehicle direction, an ID of the emergency notification in-vehicle terminal, a phone number of the emergency notification in-vehicle terminal and the like. When an operator of the emergency call center receives the above emergency information from the emergency notification in-vehicle terminal, the operator calls back the phone number of the emergency notification in-vehicle terminal and conducts a telephone communication with the driver of the vehicle to confirm the safety of the driver. A mobile communication device configured to reduce electric power consumption is described in Patent Document 1.    Patent Document 1: JP-2005-323285A
In the above configuration, the emergency notification in-vehicle terminal consumes a large amount of electric power in conducting the telephone communication with the emergency call center. Thus, the back-up battery, which is built in the emergency notification in-vehicle terminal, needs to have a considerably-large battery capacity.